Grand Rapids landlords organizing to stop proposed inspections

GRAND RAPIDS — A local group supporting landlords is pulling out all the stops in its hopes of preventing single-family homes for rent from having to be submitted to the same inspections required of multifamily rental properties.

The Grand Rapids City Commission on Tuesday scheduled a 7 p.m. Sept. 27 hearing on proposed changes to its housing code requiring inspections of single-family rentals.

The proposed changes come after more than a year of study by the city and a group of housing advocates who say the growing number of foreclosures stemming from the housing crisis threaten to blight neighborhoods and hurt the values of owner-occupied properties maintaining their homes to city standards.

Clay Powell, director of the Rental Property Owners Association of Kent County, said the proposal has sparked an unprecedented effort to convince landlords their livelihoods may be in danger, and the association has urged its 1,600 members to turn out to oppose the proposed changes.

The public hearing is scheduled at Martin Luther King Jr. Academy, 645 Logan St. SE.

“Never in the 13 years I’ve been here have we ever put a call out to all landlords, but we’re going to make a real effort to make sure our members participate in the democratic process,” Powell said.

“We don’t believe that a regular inspection will get at what they’re trying to resolve,” he added. “The problem properties are doing everything they possibly can to fly under the radar, which is what they’ve been doing for years while all the other property owners who do the right thing will have to go through a process and pay a bunch of money only to find out things are pretty good to begin with.”

The city charges a $120 inspection fee for multifamily rental properties of two units or more and, along with the proposed changes, is considering a $30 certification fee.

The fees, along with existing ones, would be used to fund the new inspection process expected to require five new city inspectors.

Those favoring the new inspections say the current enforcement system leaves many properties in need of repair because tenants frequently are reluctant to lodge complaints against their landlords.

They say about 3,200 single-family homes were converted to rentals between 2006 and 2009 and another 4,000 foreclosed homes are vacant in the city.

City records show that of the 1,589 pending housing violations, 485 involve single-family rentals, while 622 involve duplexes and 482 involve multifamily units.

Of those, 58 percent are classified nuisance cases, including 252 single family rentals, 129 duplexes and 36 multifamily units.

City Commissioners Ruth Kelly, Elias Lumpkins and Jim White seemed supportive of the changes while Commissioners Walk Gutowski and Dave Shaffer seemed to side with the landlords.

“We all want to do the right thing, but is this going to get us what we want?” Gutowski asked.

Powell agreed Gutowski and Shaffer seem to be in his camp, but he added that conversations with other commissioners indicate the proposed changes could be modified to better suit landlords.

“By the time you add all this up, you’re talking about sucking millions of dollars out of the local economy,” Powell said. “That’s money that could be used for rehabbing properties that need it.”